Allen’s call to drop beloved Spearmint Leaves, Green Frogs leaves sour taste

THE country’s largest lolly producer has dropped some of its classics.

SPEARMINT Leaves, Marella Jubes and Green Frogs have been axed by the country’s largest lolly producer, Allen’s, while other classic treats have been downsized or changed.

Sweet lovers are up in arms at the latest stealth axings, which also include Oddfellow Mints, Sherbies, Butter Menthols Kids and Jelly Tots.

Bags of Violet Crumbles have also quietly been discontinued, although bars for now, are still being sold.

An Allen’s spokesman said the changes were about “streamlining the portfolio”.

“We have streamlined the portfolio, deleting Spearmint Leaves and Green Frogs because they weren’t popular and sales had been slowing dropping off over time. We were selling one Green Frog to every 10 Red Frogs,” he said.

Sales of Spearmint Leaves have been in decline, says Allen’s.

Melbourne father Andrew Callaghan, 37, buys his son Jack, 3, a bag of mixed lollies each week and will be sad to see the classic lollies go.

“There is a bit of a connection there between the generations because they are all the classic Allen’s type lollies,” Mr Callaghan said.

“It is nostalgic for people of my era. Spearmint leaves were a favourite of mine and, of course, the Killer Python was too.”

Killer Pythons have already been downsized by the confectionery giant, wriggling down from 47g to 24g. Red Skins will also be downsized from 15g to 11g.

The spokesman said the move was “aimed at bringing our confectionery serves down to appropriate portion sizes”.

A number of other famous lollies, including cars, snakes and Chico Babies, have also been tinkered with to remove artificial colour and gelatine.

Snakes and cars have had blue colour changed to purple.

Going, gone.

“We may be able to bring them back into the fold when we can source a non-artificial shade of blue that can be used across our entire range, but in the meantime we’ve replaced it with a rich non-artificial purple colour, which tastes exactly the same,” the spokesman said.

Former Melbourne wholesale confectionery distributor Craig Teal slammed the changes as “horrendous”.

“It is just spin and trying to be doing the right thing in the community’s eyes,” he said.

“To change the colour seems superfluous because the lolly is still going to be full of sugar.”

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